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A journey towards a marathon before 30

Tag Archives: tapering woes

Hello blog, anyone there? I wouldn’t blame if you found pastures new for your vegan running blogging tales. It has been ages and I apologise but let me bring you up to speed.

In 2 weeks I will become a marathoner, I am not injured and I feel the fittest I have been in 10 years.

The past few weeks have seen me go on holiday to Poland then Berlin with my girlfriend Kasia. This happened to coincide with the longest run in my training plan; a 20 mile plus run. So with the trainers in my suitcase we went about mapping out a 20 plus mile run to the Polish countryside. Setting out from Brzeg we headed out of the town, whilst running I spotted a stork or top of a lamp post, it was seriously cool and apparently it is the Polish national bird. The weather was very hot 21 degrees but luckily I had Kasia riding with me on her bike passing me water and my raspberry clif gels.

I did the 21.7 miles in 3:15 it was tough. When we turned around at mile 11 we went straight into a strong headwind and the pace immediately slowed. I had stupidly played football the day before and my hamstrings were very tight as a result. After this my target marathon time is 3:45, I feel if my hamstrings are a bit looser than they are at the moment, hopefully the taper will help, I could push to get around 3:30 but we will see.

To be honest training the last few weeks has been sporadic at best, I moved house and then came down with a crazy 24 fever which set me back. I need to remember I am in taper mode but 23 miles solid running last week and only 13.5 this week isn’t probably where I should be.

I have been getting all sorts of little niggles and anxieties as I am running less but I hear this is to be expected. My friend Sam Sparrow has been doing a great job of reassuring me this is just my head being a bit crazy. I do actually feel pretty good, even if I do worry my longest run was too far away from the marathon.

This Friday’s run was difficult I collided with a pedestrian who dodged my friend Clare and stepped out from behind someone else straight into my path. It was windy and we ran to Highgate before rambling around the trails of Hampstead Heath, it was muddy it was windy it was hilly but we did a decent 8.5 miles.

I have been swimming lots and making great improvements in the pool doing 1 mile swims of front crawl. I am finding the cross training is really helping with my core strength.

I would love to hear from people who have run Edinburgh before, is there anything I need to be looking out for with the course? How much should I be running this week with the marathon 2 weeks away? I feel tempted to crank out another 15 mile run but I know that is actually pretty insane. But I am tempted… Very tempted.

Thanks for all of your comments and support I can’t believe I am nearly there. 14 months ago I was heading towards being overweight and couldn’t run 2 miles. Now I am on the verge of running a sub 4 hour marathon on my first go. It feels like a big deal to me and I couldn’t have done it without you.